THE  LEHIGH  UNIVERSITY, 

ASA  PACKER,  FOUNDER. 


|  "2-0 


- * 


Origins  and  Destiny 


AN  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  ON 


FOUNDER’S  DAY, 

9  ( 

OCTOBER  13,  1898, 


BY 

LANGDON  C.  STEYVARDSON, 

CHAPLAIN  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY, 
South  Bethlehem,  Pa. 

1898. 


The  New  Era  Printing  Company 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


zJ 


ORIGINS  AND  DESTINY. 


The  institution  of  Founder’s  Day  carries  our  minds  back 
by  inevitable  necessity  to  the  origin  of  this  University.  It 
recalls  the  infant  “  School  of  Science’’  and  its  large-hearted 
father.  It  reminds  us  whence  we  came  and  by  whom  we 
were  begotten.  To-day  we  are  all  present  at  the  birth  of 
Lehigh  University.  The  class  rooms  and  laboratories  of 
1898  are  for  the  moment  deserted.  We  have  gathered 
about  our  common  cradle.  We  have  gone  back  to  our 
beginnings. 

Such  an  occasion  has,  therefore,  seemed  to  me  a  fitting 
one  for  the  discussion,  in  some  of  its  bearings,  of  a  subject 
which  I  have  entitled  “  Origins  and  Destiny.”  It  involves, 
as  you  have  immediately  divined,  the  old  questions  of 
“  whence  and  whither” — the  past  and  the  future  of  life. 
But  old  as  these  questions  are  they  have  never  lost  the 
glamour  which  has  surrounded  them  from  the  beginning, 
neither  has  the  fascination  which  they  have  always  pos¬ 
sessed  grown  less  with  time.  If,  then,  what  I  have  to  say 
to-day  is  dull  and  leaves  you  listless  and  uninterested  the 
fault  must  rest  with  me  and  not  with  my  subject.  The  only 
merit,  indeed,  to  which  I  can  lay  claim  is  that  of  having 
chosen  a  good  text. 

Turning,  first  of  all,  to  “  origins,”  we  find  them  every¬ 
where  shrouded  in  mist  and  night.  Darkness  is  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  and  in  it  are  enveloped  primitive  man 
and  primitive  religion,  primitive  language,  primitive  cus¬ 
toms,  primitive  life.  Dark  and  mysterious,  however,  as 
this  land  of  the  beginnings  is,  the  human  mind,  whether  by 
speculation  or  research,  has  sought  in  all  ages  to  explore 
and  reveal  its  secrets.  Even  the  “  Australian  Blacks,”  as 
we  are  told  by  Mr.  Palmer — one  who  lived  among  them 


4— 


and  knew  them  intimately — are  by  no  means  indifferent  to 

•J 

the  future  and  the  past.  “They  wonder,”  he  says, 
“  among  themselves  and  talk  at  night  about  these  things, 
and  the  past  existence  of  their  race  and  how  they  came 
here.”  In  truth,  the  problem  of  the  beginnings  of  things  is 
possessed  of  irresistible  attractions  for  the  children  of  men  ;  a 
fact  for  which  we  have  a  mass  of  evidence.  In  prehistoric 
ages,  for  example,  men  were  confronted  with  the  marvel  of 
fire  and  sought  forthwith  to  explain  its  advent  by  the  myth 
of  Prometheus.  They  were  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
wonders  of  the  universe  and  framed  among  others  the 
legendary  theory  of  their  origin  we  find  in  Genesis.  The 
varieties  of  language  also  were  a  mystery  to  them  and  so 
they  constructed  the  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  to  account 
for  their  beginnings. 

Passing  from  the  mythical  to  the  philosophical  era  of  de¬ 
velopment  the  question  of  “  Origins”  still  maintains  its 
outstanding  character.  Homer  and  Hesiod  had  indeed 
ascribed  to  Oceanus  and  Tethys  the  origin  of  all  things, 
but  the  first  Greek  philosophers,  emancipating  themselves 
from  mythical  conceptions,  sought  to  interpret  nature  by 
tracing  her  phenomena  to  some  natural  source.  One  found 
it,  as  we  all  remember,  in  water ;  another  in  air ;  while  a 
third,  the  most  famous  of  them  all,  carried  the  sum  of 
phenomenal  existence  back  to  primitive  atoms — alike  in 
quality  but  differing  in  weight  and  size  and  shape. 

Again,  in  endeavoring  to  account  for  religion  and  the 
.gods,  Euhemerus,  anticipating  Mr.  Spencer,  traced  their 
•origin  to  the  worship  of  kings  and  heroes ;  while  Lucre¬ 
tius,  forestalling  the  doctrine  of  animism,  announced  that 
“the  dreams  of  men  peopled  the  heavens  with  gods.” 
Such  are  a  few  examples,  and  thousands  more  might  be 
cited,  of  the  wide  and  early  interest  in  origins. 

Of  late  years,  owing  to  the  multiplicity  of  conflicting 
theories,  the  varied  and  sometimes  bizarre  reconstructions 
of  primitive  man,  together  with  much  unlicensed  dogma- 


- 0 - 


tism  about  “  first  causes,”  it  has  become  the  habit  of  many 
writers  to  affirm  that  we  know  nothing  at  all  about  first 
causes  and  primitive  man  and  the  like ;  assertions  which 
are  indeed  almost,  if  not  quite  literally,  true,  but  which  for 
all  that  are  likely^  to  convey  a  false  impression  if  they 
beget  the  idea  that  the  whole  search  for  beginnings  is  a 
futile  and  time-wasting  operation.  Professor  Brinton  is 
for  his  part  more  than  justified  in  reminding  us  that  “  we 
know  little,  if  anything,  about  the  earliest  men,”  and  that 
“their  religion  would  make  a  short  chapter;”  and  again 
“that  primitive  to  the  ethnologist  means  the  earliest  of  a 
given  race  or  tribe  of  whom  he  has  trusty  information.” 
Cautious  language  such  as  this  is  far  from  likely  to  arouse 
the  suspicion  that  the  anthropologist  is  a  fool  for  his  pains 
or  that  ethnology^  is  a  wild-goose  chase,  foreordained  to 
failure  and  confusion.  But  when  a  brilliant  and  versatile 
writer  like  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  declares  “  that  the  origin  of 
a  belief  in  God  is  beyond  the  ken  of  history  and  of  specu¬ 
lation,”  he  seems  to  give  as  his  opinion  that  all  research  in 
this  direction  is  vain  and  that  human  effort  had  best  be 
switched  off  into  other  channels.  And  yet,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  implied  distrust  of  the  search  for  origins  contained 
in  the  above  quotation,  coupled  as  it  is  in  Mi*.  Lang’s  writ¬ 
ings  with  endless  jeers  and  flings  at  the  science  of  an¬ 
thropology,  we  find  our  author,  in  his  latest  work  “The 
Making  of  Religion,”  endeavoring  with  much  zeal  and 
increased  information  to  solve  the  problem  of  primitive 
faith — “cutting  a  path”  as  he  himself  expresses  it, 
“  through  the  jungles  of  early  religions.” 

All  of  which  goes  to  show  that,  although  the  beginnings 
of  things  are  unknown  and  involved  in  mystery,  the  en¬ 
deavor  to  clear  up  the  mystery  is  inevitable.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  nothing  can  quench  the  interest  of  the  human  heart 
in  cosmical  or  human  origins,  and  nothing  can  successfully 
obstruct  the  slow  but  certain  delineation  of  that  sequence 
of  events  by  which  the  earth  was  shaped  and  living  things 


— 6— 


appeared  and  man  emerged  to  run  his  fateful  course.  In 
like  manner,  nothing  can  prevent  that  gradual  extension 
of  human  history  by  which  the  darkness  which  covers  man’s 
early  life  upon  this  planet  is  being  pushed  yet  further  back 
towards  the  beginning.  Efforts  archaeological,  efforts  eth¬ 
nological,  efforts  philological,  efforts  palaeontological  and 
many  more  are  constantly  in  operation  to  achieve  this  end  ; 
and  if,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  past  showed  interest  in 
the  origins  of  things,  the  present  is  even  yet  more  zealous 
in  their  pursuit.  Last  summer,  while  browsing  about 
among  the  new  books  displayed  upon  the  shelves  of  a 
London  bookstore,  my  eye  was  attracted  by  a  certain  re¬ 
markable  similarity  in  their  titles.  There  was  one  book 
called  the  “  Origin  and  Growth  of  the  United  States,” 
there  was  another  entitled  the  “  Origin  and  Growth  of 
Plato’s  Republic”  and  there  again  a  third  bearing  in  great 
gilt  letters  upon  its  blue  cover  the  attractive  inscription 
“  Origin  and  Growth  of  the  Moral  Instinct.”  Wherever 
I  looked,  in  fact,  the  word  “Origin”  started  into  view; 
and  this  experience,  trivial  though  it  was,  impressed  me  as 
a  striking  testimony  to  the  prominence  which  origins  or 
beginnings  occupy  in  current  thought.  Mr.  Darwin,  above 
all  others,  is  of  course  responsible  for  this  unquestionable 
prominence.  He  has  given  to  the  struggle  towards  begin¬ 
nings  not  only  the  impetus  of  a  fresh  inspiration,  but  the 
guidance  of  a  new  light ;  and,  however  wide  may  be  the 
gaps  in  our  knowledge  of  cosmic  development,  and  no 
matter  how  numerous  the  missing  links,  the  conviction  has 
taken  root  that  the  course  of  this  universe,  with  all  its  ca¬ 
tastrophes,  stagnations,  retrogressions  and  advances  has 
been  and  is  an  ordered  sequence — that  events  precede  and 
follow  each  other  according  to  law — that  pervading  the 
whole  vast  reach  of  progress  from  the  nebula  to  man,  there 
is  a  principle  of  continuity. 

Hence,  not  in  one  department  alone,  but  in  all,  we  find 
the  search  for  origins  in  course  of  vigorous  prosecution. 


— 7— 


The  philosopher  probes  for  first  principles,  the  chemist  an¬ 
alyzes  for  elements,  the  philologist  digs  for  roots.  Biology, 
for  more  reasons  than  one,  is  busy  with  the  earliest  and 
simplest  forms  of  life,  while  ethnology  is  profoundly  con¬ 
cerned  with  primitive  peoples — their  language,  religion, 
laws.  Again,  astronomy  has,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
demonstrated  the  nebulous  origin  of  our  planetary  system, 
while  geology  has  traced  in  great  outlines  and  through  vast 
and  bewildering  reaches  of  time,  the  history  of  the  earth. 
Never,  in  fact,  has  the  search  for  origins  been  more  earnest 
and  widespread  than  at  the  present  day. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  not  a  few  people  who  look 
upon  the  whole  effort  as  a  waste  of  time,  a  futile  grubbing 
in  the  past,  a  culpable  desertion  of  the  present,  a  need¬ 
less  and  gratuitous  return  to  Adam.  To  which  it  may  be 
replied  first  of  all  that  past  and  present  cannot  be  separated 
by  any  hard  and  fast  line,  and  that  he  alone  is  able  to  un¬ 
lock  the  secrets  of  departed  days,  who  is  familiar  with  the 
living  world.  “  By  these  researches  into  the  state  of  the 
earth  and  its  inhabitants  at  former  periods,”  says  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  “  we  acquire  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of 
its  present  condition  and  more  comprehensive  views  con¬ 
cerning  the  laws  now  governing  its  animate  and  inanimate 
productions.  *  *  *  If  we  would  enlarge  our  experi¬ 

ence  of  the  present  economy  of  nature,  we  must  investigate 
the  effects  of  her  operations  in  former  epochs.”  Again,  it 
was  only  by  an  examination  of  volcanoes  now  active  and  by 
comparing  their  structure  and  the  composition  of  their  lavas 
with  the  ancient  trap  rocks  that  geologists  were  able  to  as¬ 
certain  the  igneous  origin  of  certain  primitive  formations. 
In  like  manner  it  is  only  by  knowledge  of  the  folk-lore  of 
existing  peoples  and  by  careful  study  of  the  customs  and 
beliefs  of  living  savages  that  we  can  obtain  an  insight  into 
the  life  of  primitive  man  ;  while  he  who  would  discover  the 
origin  of  religion  can  find  it  only  at  its  psychical  source — 
the  soul  that  liveth  now. 


— 8— 


And  so  we  see  that  the  past  is  by  no  means  dead  and 
gone.  The  forces  of  nature  that  were  at  work  in  the  be¬ 
ginning  are  operative  still,  while  the  thoughts  and  customs 
of  extinct  peoples  survive  not  merely  in  savage  lands,  but 
in  the  very  bosom  of  our  boasted  civilization. 

Now  it  is  this  last  fact  which  shows  us  that  the  search 
for  origins  does  not  necessarily  mean  retreating  to  the 
earliest  ages  or  camping  out  with  palaeolithic  man.  The 
endeavor  to  ascertain  the  causes  of  social  corruption  and 
advancement  is  occupying  the  heads  of  our  political  reform¬ 
ers,  and  everywhere  throughout  the  laboratories  of  Europe 
and  America  thoughtful  students  are  investigating  the 
germs  of  disease,  the  beginnings  of  evil.  Here  it  is  that 
the  practical  consequences  of  the  search  for  origins 
“  spring  into  the  eyes,”  to  use  a  German  idiom,  of  the 
veriest  Philistine.  Pasteur  and  Koch,  by  ascertaining  the 
origin  of  certain  maladies,  have  been  able  to  prevent  or 
cure  them.  The  science  of  sanitation  and  hygiene  discov¬ 
ered  the  beginnings  of  plague  and 1  pestilence  in  human 
filth.  And  what  have  been  the  consequences?  Not  only 
have  we  cleaner  and  more  sightly  streets,  but  cholera, 
which  in  former  ages  swept  the  land  like  a  scourge,  is  little 
feared,  while  typhus,  once  so  dreadful  in  its  ravages,  is 
only  seldom  heard  of.  Again,  by  finding  out  the  real 
cause  of  insanity,  by  learning  it  was  not  due  to  demoniacal 
possession  but  to  bodily  disease,  many  a  poor  distracted 
soul  has  been  spared  the  torture  of  an  unmerited  sorrow, 
while  from  the  heart  of  judge  and  care-taker  alike,  has  been 
lifted  the  curse  of  an  uncalled-for  cruelty.  Once  more, 
researches  in  chemistry  and  physics,  researches  which 
traced  the  origin  of  phenomena  to  natural  antecedents  in¬ 
stead  of  to  magic  or  satanic  compact,  have  produced  not 
only  all  those  marvelous  discoveries  from  Roger  Bacon  to 
Rontgen,  but  have  led  to  most  of  those  inventions  by  which 
business  has  been  enlarged  and  civilization  promoted.  In 
fine  it  was  the  search  for  the  natural  origins  of  the  phe- 


—9 


nomen  a  of  chemistry  and  physics  which  brought  about  the 
overthrow  of  the  revolting  superstitions  of  sorcery  and 
magic.  In  doing  this  it  gave  to  the  world  increased 
knowledge  and  better  instruments  of  investigation,  created 
new  industries  and  opened  up  untrodden  paths  of  enter¬ 
prise  and  happiness. 

Bearing  in  mind,  therefore,  that  the  search  for  origins 
means  not  merely  going  back  towards  the  first  beginnings 
in  time,  but  also  the  observation-  of  present  phenomena  and 
the  reduction  of  them  to  their  simplest  and  most  elementary 
forms,  let  us  now  notice,  in  addition  to  the  eminently 
practical  results  just  mentioned,  some  of  the  other  impor¬ 
tant  consequences  of  this  process  of  research. 

And  the  first  consequence  that  I  shall  ask  you  to  observe 
is  that  of  intellectual  unity.  By  means  of  the  search  for 
origins  we  find  a  practical  opportunity  for  the  satisfaction 
of  our  intellectual  needs.  Our  minds,  for  example,  are 
stormed  by  a  perfect  chaos  of  heterogeneous  impressions. 
All  is  in  confusion.  But  then  we  begin  to  reduce  this 
chaos  to  order.  We  take  the  impressions  and  compare 
them.  We  observe  certain  likenesses  and  differences 
among  them.  We  arrange  them  in  series  ;  grasp  them  as 
things  of  a  kind,  pervaded  by  a  common  principle  or 
quality ;  call  them  sights,  smells,  sounds,  animals  and 
vegetables,  organic  and  inorganic.  Then  we  enlarge  or 
develop  the  series  by  fact  or  inference.  New  similarities, 
not  evident  at  first,  begin  to  appear.  Series  which 
formerly  dwelt  apart — separate  sciences  for  example — are 
brought  into  relation  with  each  other.  Generalization 
broadens — rational  synthesis  becomes  more  comprehen¬ 
sive — and  with  it  the  effort  is  made  to  find  the  ultimate  un¬ 
changing  causes  of  the  processes  of  nature  and  mind. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  postulate  or  presupposition  of  this 
whole  search  for  origins  is  the  rationality  of  things.  As 
the  mind  faces  nature  or  itself  its  belief  is  that  whatever  is 
is  rational,  intelligible;  that  the  chaos  of  impressions,  the 


- IO 


multitude  of  heterogeneous  phenomena — the  countless 
worlds  of  space  and  the  untold  events  of  time — can  all  be 
brought  into  relation — be  unified  within  the  synthesis  of 
thought.  It  is  this  belief  in  the  rationality  of  things  which 
is  the  parent  alike  of  science  and  philosophy  and  which 
spurs  men  on  to  renewed  intellectual  exertions.  Many  in¬ 
deed  are  the  unsolved  problems,  vast  are  the  tracts  of 
tangled  and  confused  experience  which  seem  to  know  no 
law,  innumerable  have  been  the  errors  and  failures  of  hu¬ 
man  thinkers  and  investigators  ;  but  still  the  faith  abides 
that  “  the  Author  of  this  Universe  will  not  put  us  to  perma¬ 
nent  intellectual  confusion.”  The  result  is  that  with  this 
undying  postulate  of  the  rationality  of  things  the  search  for 
origins  goes  on  ;  and  although  the  first  causes  have  not 
been  reached,  although  the  beginnings  of  things  remain  in 
darkness,  nevertheless  the  effort  itself  has  within  certain 
areas  succeeded  in  bringing  unity  out  of  chaos  and  turn¬ 
ing  darkness  into  light. 

Starting  thus  with  the  postulate  of  rationality  the  human 
mind,  by  tracing  complex  or  highly  organized  phenomena 
back  to  their  simplest  observable  forms,  is  able  to  discover 
a  certain  “  continuum  ”  throughout  the  whole  of  any  given 
series.  The  simpler  the  forms  the  more  readily,  in  many 
cases,  the  fundamental  elements  characteristic  of  any  class 
of  phenomena  reveal  themselves.  In  protoplasm  the  bi¬ 
ologist  can  study  the  basic  activities  which  pervade  all  life  ; 
in  the  roots  of  speech  the  philologist  can  observe  the  ele¬ 
ments  which  run  through  all  the  higher  and  more  compli¬ 
cated  forms  of  language  ;  in  the  faiths  of  primitive  peoples 
the  anthropologist  can  discern  the  common  rudiments  of  all 
religion.  Thus  it  is  that  a  certain  identity  or  sameness  is 
discernible  among  the  most  diverse  phenomena.  Hydro¬ 
gen  remains  identical  with  itself  through  all  the  many 
forms  of  combination  in  which  it  appears.  Tongues  so 
diverse  as  to  be  incomprehensible  to  each  other  are  found 
to  belong  to  the  same  family.  Light,  heat,  electricity  and 


— II — 


nerve  force  are  seen  to  be  but  unlike  modes  of  motion. 
Religions  as  dissimilar  as  those  of  the  Fuegians  and 
Christians  reveal  a  common  faith  in  a  divine  power.  By 
means  of  these  fundamental  likenesses,  unity  emerges  out 
of  the  very  bosom  of  diversity  and  the  riotous  multitude  of 
phenomena  are  marshalled  into  coherent  and  continuous 
ranks. 

Furthermore,  by  means  of  the  search  for  origins  not 
only  is  there  revealed  a  common  principle  or  element 
which  unites  all  the  members  of  a  given  series,  but  also  an 
order  of  sequence.  In  the  flow  or  succession  of  things 
there  are  recurrences,  rhythms,  harmonies.  The  ranks 
keep  time  as  they  march  by,  their  evolutions  are  according 
to  law.  And,  although  our  attention  may  be  distracted  by 
the  endless  diversities  of  the  procession,  diversities  of 
dress  and  stature,  physiognomy  and  color,  we  may  yet 
catch,  if  we  listen  for  it,  the  step  to  which  they  move. 
The  light  that  issues  from  the  distant  suns  and  the  light 
that  comes  from  the  end  of  your  cigar  are  both  transmitted 
and  reflected  according  to  the  same  formulas,  and  by  the 
law  of  gravity  the  wandering  comet,  the  solid  earth  and 
the  falling  stone  drop  into  line. 

There  are  also  laws  of  mind  as  well  as  laws  of  nature. 
Wonderful  as  are  the  varieties  of  mind,  it  is  still  more 
wonderful  to  note  its  similarities,  its  laws  of  permanent  re¬ 
action.  In  countries  widely  separated  it  has  framed  sim¬ 
ilar  cults,  developed  similar  superstitions  and  beliefs,  made 
also  the  same  discoveries  and  inventions.  Even  the  vaga¬ 
ries  of  its  fancy  and  the  flights  of  its  imagination  are  not 
beyond  the  reach  of  law,  and  nowhere  perhaps  does  the 
unity  of  the  human  mind  display  itself  more  clearly  than 
in  the  likenesses  between  the  myths  and  fairy  tales  of  many 
peoples. 

Such  is  a  second  most  important  result  of  the  search  for 
origins  and  a  third  equally  noticeable  is  that  extension  of 
historical  perspective  as  well  as  that  broadening  out  of  the 


whole  mental  horizon  which  this  investigation  bestows.  It 
not  only  furnishes  us  with  a  vaster  historical  retrospect  in 
time,  but  enriches  the  content  of  that  retrospect  from  every 
side.  By  it  the  stream  of  human  thought  is  broadened  as 
well  as  lengthened.  The  search  for  the  origin  of  species 
sent  Darwin  off  on  the  famous  voyage  of  the  Beagle ;  the 
search  for  the  origin  of  a  religious  legend  carried  Frazer 
out  among  the  peasant  folk  of  England  and  the  Continent. 
Spurred  by  the  same  spirit  of  investigation  Schliemann 
betook  himself  to  Asia  Minor,  Peters  to  Babylonia,  Petrie 
to  Egypt.  Such  and  many  other  similar  endeavors  disclose, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  vast  reaches  of  time  required  for  the 
transformation  of  species  and  the  development  of  man, 
and,  on  the  other,  fill  the  ages  with  a  multitude  of  new 
events.  So  is  our  historical  perspective  carried  back  to 
greater  distances  and  the  material  of  our  field  of  vision  en¬ 
riched. 

All  this  means  the  enlargement  of  the  mental  world  in 
which  we  live,  increase  of  experience  and  of  resource.  It 
is  true,  indeed,  that  imagination  has  often  enough  supplied 
the  defects  of  knowledge  and  that  the  thoughts  of  the 
mightiest  ancients,  transcending  their  little  world,  are  still 
an  inspiration  and  delight  to  the  men  of  to-day.  Unques¬ 
tionable  as  these  facts  are  and  equally  so  that  knowledge 
and  outlook  alone  in  space  and  time  can  neither  account 
for  all  man  is  nor  make  him  all  he  ought  to  be,  yet  it  is 
also  quite  as  certain  that  the  increase  of  historical  per¬ 
spective  and  the  broadening  of  the  field  of  vision  are  op¬ 
portunities  for  insight  and  inspiration  we  dare  not  slur. 
And  it  is  these  invaluable  opportunities  with  which  the 
search  for  origins  provides  us.  It  provided  them  for  the 
men  of  long  ago  when  it  carried  their  minds  back  to  the 
beginning  in  which  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
and  it  provides  them  in  even  richer  measure  for  us  of  to¬ 
day  by  means  alike  of  the  faith  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
exact  research  of  the  New. 


—i3— 


For  after  all  it  is  the  world  of  consciousness — the  world 
of  thought  and  passion,  insight  and  aspiration — which  con¬ 
stitutes  our  real  world,  the  world  in  which  we  live.  And 
now  think  of  how  this  world  of  consciousness  has  been  en- 
riched,  even  for  thousands  of  ignorant  people,  since  that 
distant  age  when  men  believed  themselves  shut  in  by  the 
solid  firmament  above  their  heads  and  the  whole  earth 

bounded  bv  the  ocean  that  washed  their  shores.  Think 
•/ 

how  the  mind’s  horizon  has  been  broadened  since  the  dav 

J 

when  human  life  upon  this  planet  was  supposed  to  have 
had  a  duration  of  but  a  few  thousand  years,  and  when  the 
priests  declared,  as  some  of  them  do  still,  that  the  book  of 
divine  revelation  was  complete  and  closed. 

Not  that  every  man  who  seeks  for  origins  gets  of  neces¬ 
sity  the  far-reaching  retrospect  and  fuller  perspective  of 
which  I  am  speaking  now.  There  are  those  who,  buried 
in  their  little  holes  of  specialty,  hardly  succeed  in  seeing 
farther  than  their  own  noses,  and  who,  because  of  their 
contracted  outlook,  compare  unfavorably  with  the  bigness 
of  mind  which  often  showed  itself  in  the  smaller  worlds 
of  long  ago.  All  this  is  true  ;  but  it  is  neither  here  nor 
there,  neither  does  it  touch  my  point,  which  is  that  the 
search  for  origins,  especially  as  it  has  been  prosecuted  for 
the  past  fifty  years  or  more,  has  opened  up  vast  perspec¬ 
tives  of  history  and  disclosed  a  wealth  of  fact  and  sequence 
before  unseen  and  unsuspected.  And  this,  I  contend,  is  not 
merely  an  opportunity  which  one  may  utilize  if  one  will, 
but  a  fact  of  consciousness  beyond  dispute. 

Please  observe  also  that  metaphysical  theories,  such  as 
those  of  Hackel  and  Biichner  do  not  here  come  into  the 
account.  I  am  not  speaking  of  metaphysics,  but  of  the 
positive  results  of  research.  It  is  only  too  true  that  these 
have  frightened  the  theologians  and  given  occasion  to  a 
few  minds  of  atheistic  temper  to  air  their  denials.  But 
such  ancient  history  as  this  always  repeats  itself  at  every 
great  enlargement  of  the  mental  world.  Copernicus  dis- 


' 


placed  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  Newton  formulated  the 
laws  of  motion  ;  and  in  each  instance  the  theological  world 
trembled  and  the  little,  narrow,  atheistic  world  enjoyed  its 
hard,  small  sneer.  But  in  both  cases  time  went  on,  the 
light  of  the  new  world  grew  brighter,  and,  as  the  eye  be¬ 
came  accustomed  to  its  shining,  religious  fears  evaporated 
and  atheistic  arguments  lost  their  point.  Of  late  years  we 
have  had  a  recrudescence  of  these  self-same  phenomena. 
Some  have  inveighed  against  the  hard  and  rigid  mechan¬ 
ism  of  natural  law,  and  even  so  enlightened  a  writer  as 
James  Martineau  complains,  in  eloquent  rhetoric,  of  that 
new  order  of  things  which  forces  us  to  see  “  the  beauty 
of  the  flower  fade  into  a  necessity.”  But  how  much  better 
off  should  we  be  if  we  saw  the  beauty  of  this  self-same 
flower  fade  into  accident  or  chance?  For  ages  philoso¬ 
phers  have  delighted  in  the  possession  of  necessary  truths ; 
for  ages  the  religious  consciousness  has  comforted  itself 
with  the  thought  that  “  every  good  gift  and  every  perfect 
gift  is  from  above  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of 
lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness  neither  shadow  of 
turning .”  If  then  we  have  welcomed  the  necessary  laws 
of  mind  which  give  reliability  to  thought  and  if  we  have 
cherished  the  invariableness  of  God,  which  offers  us 
grounds  for  trust,  why  should  we  stand  appalled  before 
those  necessities  of  nature  which  yield  us  the  basis  for  re¬ 
search? 

But  the  positive  results  of  research  have  done  far  more 
than  evoke  the  fears  of  the  timid  and  the  applause  of  the 
godless.  They  have,  let  me  repeat,  enlarged  our  mental 
world  and  given  it  increased  content.  They  have  furnished 
not  dry  statistics  alone  and  tedious  details,  but  added  ma¬ 
terial  for  philosophy,  fresh  themes  for  poetry,  new  and 
nobler  forms  for  a  belief  in  God.  It  is  all  this  and  more 
which  the  far-reaching  perspective  and  the  wealth  of  his¬ 
torical  event  revealed  by  research  have  done  for  many  a 
man.  Birth,  then,  into  this  larger  world  has  had  its  en- 


—i5— 


nobling  effects — effects  which  must  inevitably  multiply  as 
time  goes  on. 

Turn,  first,  if  you  will,  to  the  moral  effects.  With  the 
extension  of  his  historical  perspective  and  the  keeping  of 
written  records  man  emerges  from  savagery.  As  the  per¬ 
spective  deepens  and  the  horizon  of  his  mental  world  lifts 
and  widens  he  ascends  in  civilization.  He  becomes  a 
creature  of  far-reaching  vision — the  inhabitant  of  a  larger 
thought-world.  He  formulates  those  sequences  and  rhyth¬ 
mical  recurrences  for  which  long  periods  of  time  are 
required.  It  is  said  that  the  observations  of  the  Egyptian 
priesthood,  which  fixed  the  ancient  year,  covered  a  period 
of  fifteen  centuries.  In  like  manner  the  curve  obtained  by 
every  series  of  scientific  observations  is  a  sequence  in  time. 

Confronting  man  rather  than  nature  new  sequences  ap¬ 
pear — a  moral  order  emerges  into  view.  Retributions 
which  isolated  individuals  seemed  to  escape  are  glaringly 
visible  among  a  whole  community,  while  blessings  and 
rewards,  apparently  withheld  from  many  a  lonely  com¬ 
batant,  descend  at  last  upon  the  nation  at  large.  Peoples 
that  sin  against  the  moral  order  are  seen  to  sink  into  de¬ 
generacy  ;  peoples  that  obey  it  rise  to  influence  and  power. 
Thus  within  the  last  few  months  has  poor  Spain  suffered 
the  consequence  and  penalty  of  her  corruption,  cruelty 
and  pride. 

Now  it  is  the  contemplation  of  this  wide  and  distant 
sweep  of  history — this  vision  of  a  world  of  growth  and 
decay,  degeneration  and  ascent,  which  furnishes  the  mind 
with  fresh  occasion  for  moral  occupation  and  incentive. 
Think,  if  you  will,  of  the  mind,  in  large  part,  empty  of  this 
perspective — the  mind  whose  time  horizon  is  bounded  al¬ 
most  by  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun — that  lives  in  the 
present — in  its  immediate  sensations  of  success  or  defeat, 
elation  or  despair;  and  then  compare  its  moral  opportu¬ 
nities  with  those  of  the  man  whose  mental  world  has  the 
wide  horizon  I  have  just  described.  Such  a  man  has 


1 6 


resources,  not  of  knowledge  only,  but  of  moral  stimulus 
and  inspiration.  He  sees  himself  a  part  of  a  great  whole, 
the  member  of  a  moral  order,  the  child  of  that  intelligence 
which  shines  in  the  resplendent  face  of  nature  and  of  that 
righteousness  which  shows  itself  in  human  histories  and 
hearts.  Yes,  and  as  he  views  this  world  of  large  relations, 
wide-reaching  laws  and  vast  perspectives,  he  is  confirmed 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  his  duty  also  to  make  truth  prevail 
and  justice  triumphant — his  duty  to  further  those  moral 
ends  revealed  in  consciousness,  of  which  the  course  of 
visible  events  reflects  a  vivid  and  dramatic  picture. 

Then  again  there  are  the  aesthetic  effects  produced  by 
historic  perspective  ;  a  perspective  to  which  the  search  for 
origins  has  given  such  width  and  depth.  The  printed  page 
blurs  when  held  too  close  to  the  eye  and  the  effort  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  characters  upon  it  gives  us  pain.  We  may 
sit  too  near  the  music  to  catch  its  true  effect,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  we  cannot  rightly  estimate  the  proportions  of  a 
man’s  character  and  the  value  of  his  work  until  he  has 
passed  into  history.  It  is  then,  when  far  removed  from  the 
hurlv  burly  of  the  hour — when  the  dust  of  the  conflict  has 
cleared  away — that  he  takes  his  true  place.  It  is  then  his 
proper  relations  to  his  compeers  and  competitors  appear. 
There  is  far  more  truth  than  cynicism  in  the  old  line  “  ’Tis 
distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view.”  It  is  not  that 
distance  distorts  the  object  and  throws  about  it  the  haze 
of  fable  and  the  glamour  of  romance,  but  rather  that  it 
brings  out  the  important  outlines  and  releases  the  har¬ 
monies  of  color  and  relation  which  close  proximity  too 
often  hides.  It  is  the  beauty  of  these  harmonies  and  out¬ 
lines — these  proportions,  relations,  unities — which  the  long 
development  of  nature  and  the  ascent  of  man  reveal. 

Once  more  there  are  the  effects  for  the  religious  con¬ 
sciousness  evoked  by  the  unfolding  of  the  drama  of  the 
Universe  at  the  hands  of  research.  The  long  and  mighty 
array  of  phenomenal  sequences,  the  ascent  from  lower  to 


—i7 


higher  forms  of  life,  the  dawn  and  growth  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  the  vision  of  unity,  the  rhythmical  pulse  of  law,  the 
tragedy  of  man’s  moral  struggle,  the  glory  of  his  religious 
hope — all  these,  surveyed  within  the  ever-brightening  per¬ 
spective  of  the  past,  arouse  the  belief  that  there  is  a  mean¬ 
ing — a  purpose  in  it  all.  Instinctively  one  feels  that  what 
one  sees  cannot  be  the  result  of  undesigned  coincidence. 
So  much  method  cannot  be  the  child  of  chance.  And  thus 
the  idea  of  design  is  born,  but  it  is  not  in  any  sense  the 
idea  that  Paley  cherished.  Paley  presented  us  with  the 
picture  of  a  celestial  mechanic  who,  in  the  beginning,  made 
and  wound  his  cosmical  clocks  and  then  left  them,  except 
for  an  occasional  miraculous  interference,  to  run  on  and 
down.  Not  this,  but  quite  another  is  the  conception  of  de¬ 
sign  revealed  in  cosmic  and  human  development.  Here 
we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  an  ever-present  intelli¬ 
gence  without  which  the  mere  phenomenal  successions  in 
time  and  space  defy  an  ultimate  explanation.  In  the 
emergence  of  new  and  higher  forms  of  force  and  law  and 
reason  we  behold  not  the  disfigured  traces  of  a  heavenly 
workshop  nor  the  imprint  of  a  divine  hand  long  since  re¬ 
moved,  but  rather  the  abiding  presence  of  an  eternal  mind 
who  lives  and  moves  and  guides  the  whole.  It  is  not 
Phillips  Brooks,  but  Professor  Brinton,  who  says:  “The 
teachings  of  the  severest  science  tell  us  that  matter  is  in  its 
last  analysis  motion  and  that  motion  is  naught  else  than 
mind  ;  and  who  dare  deny  that  in  their  unconscious  func¬ 
tions  our  minds  may  catch  some  overtones,  as  it  were,  from 
the  harmonies  of  the  Universal  Intelligence,  thus  demon¬ 
strated  by  inductive  research  and  vibrate  in  harmony  there¬ 
with.”  It  is  not  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  but  Herbert 
Spencer,  who  writes:  “But  one  truth  must  grow  ever 
clearer — the  truth  that  there  is  an  inscrutable  Existence 
everywhere  manifested  to  which  he,  i.  e .,  man,  can  neither 
find  nor  conceive  either  beginning  or  end.  Amid  the 
mysteries  which  become  the  more  mysterious  the  more 


— 18 


they  are  thought  about,  there  will  remain  the  one  absolute 
certainty  that  he  is  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  energy  from  which  all  things  proceed.” 

Such  are  the  most  important  results  of  the  search  for 
origins — practical,  intellectual,  moral,  assthetic,  religious. 

Nevertheless,  the  treatment  of  my  subject  would  be  far 
from  complete  if  I  failed  at  this  point  to  notice  the  use  to 
which  the  search  for  origins  has  been  put  by  those  who  are 
hostile  to  religion.  Here  the  effort  has  been  to  belittle  and 
discredit  religion  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  by  pointing  out  the 
superstitions,  errors  and  barbarities  with  which  its  begin¬ 
nings  are  inevitably  intermingled.  The  persons  engaged 
in  this  work  in  our  own  day  and  generation,  are  the  legiti¬ 
mate  successors  of  those  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  who  vainly  tried  to  show  that  religion  was  an  in¬ 
vention  of  the  priests.  It  has  now  been  amply  proven  that 
religion  begets  the  priest  and  not  the  priest  religion ;  but 
the  assailants  of  religion,  rising  superior  to  all  the  discour¬ 
agements  of  failure  in  this  direction,  are  now  intent  on 
pointing  out  its  fetichistic  origin  or  in  tracing  the  idea  of 
God  to  dreams  and  ghosts.  They  do  not  all  advocate  the 
same  theory,  but  it  seems  fair  to  say  that  they  are  animated 
by  the  same  purpose. 

Now,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  catalogue  these  writers, 
neither  do  I  purpose  making  long  quotations  from  their 
works.  I  shall  simply  select  one,  M.  Guyau,  who  has 
stated  his  case  most  clearly  in  the  opening  sentences  of 
his  now  famous  work  “  L’Irreligion  de  L’ Avenir.”  “  The 
genesis  of  religions,”  says  M.  Guyau,  “possesses  a  much 
greater  importance  than  any  other  historic  question ;  it  is 
not  merely  the  truth  of  the  facts  and  of  past  events  which 
is  here  involved.  It  is  the  worth  of  our  present  ideas  and 
beliefs.  Each  of  us  has  something  at  stake  in  this  debate. 
The  reasons  which  have  in  times  past  produced  a  belief 
are  still  most  frequently  those  which  maintain  it  in  our  own 
day.  To  give  an  account  of  these  reasons  is  then,  with- 


-19- 


out  directly  willing  it,  to  render  a  favorable  or  unfavorable 
judgment  concerning  the  belief  itself.  History,  if  it  were 
ever  complete,  would  here  possess  the  power  of  effacing  in 
the  future  that  which  she  has  not  justified  in  the  past.  To 
fix  absolutely  the  origin  of  religions,  this  would  be,  at  one 
stroke,  either  to  condemn  them  or,  on  the  contrary,  to  reaf¬ 
firm  and  save  them.”  Put  into  a  single  sentence  the  con¬ 
tention  of  this  passage  seems  to  be  that  the  worth  and  truth 
of  religion  depend  upon  the  enduring  validity  of  the  form 
in  which  it  first  appears. 

In  reply  to  this  it  may  be  said  that  if,  by  the  origins  of 
religion,  M.  Guyau  means,  as  it  is  quite  evident  he  does 
mean,  its  phenomenal  origins  or  first  manifestations  (God 
or  the  non-phenomenal  source  of  religion  not  coming  here 
into  the  account),  his  argument  proves  far  too  much  and 
will  be  found  to  recoil  upon  his  own  head.  Our  author, 
be  it  observed,  is  an  ardent  advocate  of  science  and  yet  in 
another  place  and  apparently  in  entire  forgetfulness  of 
what  he  has  just  said  about  the  effect  which  the  discovery 
of  the  origin  of  religion  must,  in  his  opinion,  have  upon  its 
value  and  continuance,  he  adds,  speaking  of  the  fallacies 
of  primitive  thought:  “The  belief  in  the  influence  of 
phenomena  successive  or  concomitant  the  one  upon  the 
other  and  in  the  action  of  the  present  upon  the  future  is  at 
once  the  germ  of  the  superstitions  about  providence  and 
fate.  From  the  idea  of  fate,  of  destiny,  of  necessity  was 
to  emerge  the  scientific  notion  of  universal  reciprocal  de¬ 
terminism.” 

Are  we  to  conclude  then  that  M.  Guyau  regards  the 
scientific  notion  of  universal  reciprocal  determinism  as  in¬ 
validated  because  of  its  origin  in  the  superstitious  notions 
of  fate?  Not  at  all.  Scientific  determinism  is,  in  his  judg¬ 
ment,  to  be  held  fast  despite  its  errant  beginnings.  But 
surely  if  the  truth  and  worth  of  religion  are  overthrown  by 
the  discovery  of  manifold  fallacies  and  superstitions  in 
its  primitive  forms,  the  like  should  be  also  true  of  science ; 


- 20 


nay  not  of  science  only,  but  of  art  and  jurisprudence.  If, 
in  the  words  of  M.  Guyau,  “to  fix  absolutely  the  origins 
of  religion  would  be  at  one  stroke  either  to  condemn  them, 
or  on  the  contrary,  to  reaffirm  and  save  them,”  the  self¬ 
same  method  of  procedure  must  be  equally  applicable  to 
every  other  branch  of  human  thought.  The  scientific  con¬ 
ception  of  law,  because  it  has  arisen  from  the  bosom  of 
false  notions  about  fate  and  destiny  must  be  cast  aside. 
The  art  of  Michael  Angelo,  because  it  is  an  evolution  from 
those  rude  scratchings  of  the  cave-men  upon  the  antlers  of 
the  reindeer,  must  be  judged  as  worthless.  The  falseness 
of  initial  conceptions  and  the  badness  of  first  beginnings 
must  determine  the  truth  and  beauty  of  all  subsequent  de¬ 
velopments. 

But  this  is  manifestly  the  greatest  of  absurdities.  No 
reasonable  man  would  ever  dream  of  trying  to  discredit 
chemistry  by  pointing  to  the  foolish  superstitions  with  which 
its  early  pursuit  was  associated.  No  reasonable  man  would 
seek  to  make  modern  astronomy  appear  contemptible  by 
proving  its  emergence  from  astrology.  And  yet  it  is  ex¬ 
actly  this  argument  which  M,  Guyau,  as  well  as  many 
others,  employs  to  invalidate  religion  and  make  it  look  un¬ 
tenable.  It  is  to  be  judged  by  its  youthful  errors  of  thought 
and  by  the  poverty  of  its  beginnings.  Evidently  he  proves 
too  much,  as  I  have  just  tried  to  show,  and  his  argument 
recoils  upon  his  own  head. 

At  the  same  time  the  question  arises,  how  can  clever 
men  like  M.  Guyau — for  M.  Guyau  is  a  very  clever  man 
and  his  book  is  full  of  rare  observations  and  stimulating 
suggestions — how  can  such  men  be  blind  to  the  manifest 
consequences  of  their  own  thought?  Such  an  anomaly  is, 
I  believe,  in  great  part  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the 
world  has  been  taught,  and  most  erroneously  taught,  that 
in  the  matter  of  religion,  the  pure  truth  of  God  was  given  to 
man  at  the  very  beginning  ;  and  hence  any  proper  develop¬ 
ment  from  lower  to  higher  forms  is  inadmissible.  It  is  this 


21 


wholly  unwarranted  claim  for  the  origins  of  religion  which 
M.  Guyau  and  his  kind  have  gladly  accepted  as  a  state¬ 
ment  of  what  religion  must  essentially  be — a  pure  form  of 
truth  revealed  at  the  start.  And  since  it  has  been  easy  for 
him  and  others  to  show  that  the  religions  of  primitive 
peoples  partake  of  the  errors  and  barbarisms  which  dis¬ 
color  the  history  of  all  other  forms  of  thought  and  practice 
they  have  fel  themselves  entitled  to  conclude,  that  with 
the  disclosure  of  its  early  fallacies  and  superstitions,  the  case 
'  religio  s  lost.  And  they  are,  be  it  remarked,  fully  en¬ 
titled  to  come  to  this  conclusion,  if  it  be  true,  as  the  theo¬ 
logical  dogmatists  affirm,  that  the  value  and  verity  of  re¬ 
ligion  depend  upon  its  hav  ng  been  revealed  in  its  purity 
at  the  beginning. 

Furthermore,  having  been  also  assured  by  the  theological 
dogmatist  that  religii  thought  is  unlike  other  thought — 
that  it  is  neither  conditioned  by  the  quality  of  the  brain  nor 
determined  by  the  forms  of  knowledge — that  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  something  that  has  been  dropped  into  a  man’s  mind 
from  outside  and  can,  therefore,  be  presented  with  equal 
ease  to  the  most  primitive  as  well  as  the  most  developed  of 
the  race — having  received  oracular  assurances  of  this  sort 
from  high  authorities,  it  is  no  wonder  that  these  assurances 
have  led  to  the  isolation  of  religion  in  M.  Guyau’s  mind, 
from  art,  philosophy  and  science.  Having  been  taught  that 
religion  is  not  in  any  sense  comparable  with  these  he  has 
never  dreamed  of  associating  them  together ;  and  as  an  in¬ 
evitable  consequence  he  has  been  blinded  to  the  fact  that  if 
humble  beginnings  pour  contempt  upon  religion  they  must, 
likewise,  be  equally  discreditable  to  art  and  science. 

But  as  Mr.  Jevons  wisely  remarks  in  his  Introduction 
to  the  History  of  Religion  “  it  is  fallacious  to  talk  as  both 
friends  and  foes  of  religion  do  sometimes  talk,  as  though 
the  application  of  the  theory  of  evolution  to  religion  would 
reduce  the  higher  forms  of  it  to  mere  survivals  of  bar¬ 
barism,  animism  and  so  on.  *  *  *  Religion  as  a  form  of 


- 22 - 


thought  is  the  perception  of  the  invisible  things  of  Him 
through  the  things  that  are  made ;  it  is  common  both  to 
barbaric  and  civilized  man,  but  it  is  not,  therefore,  a  bar¬ 
baric  form  of  thought — rather  it  is  a  mode  of  cognition 
which  is  part  of  human  nature.”  Here,  as  I  believe,  we 
have  the  case  truly  stated.  In  tracing  the  origins  of 
religion  we  discover  in  its  earliest  forms  a  belief  in  God 
together  with  the  firm  assurance  that  man  is  in  communion 
with  Him.  This  belief  is  not,  however,  of  the  high  spir¬ 
itual  character  it  subsequently  assumes.  It  is  not  free  from 
the  errors  of  the  human  understanding,  neither  can  it  rise 
above  the  low  morality  and  grovelling  fears  of  savagery. 
But  it  is  not  on  that  account  either  superstition  or  illusion. 
It  is  rather  a  germ  of  truth  that  is  to  develop  its  content  in 
ever  nobler  or  more  perfect  forms.  It  is  a  light  in  the 
darkness  that  is  to  shine  more  steadily  and  brilliantly  with 
the  progress  of  the  years. 

The  effort,  therefore,  to  discredit  religion  by  pointing  to 
the  false  beliefs  and  savage  customs  with  which  its  earliest 
manifestations  are  associated  fails  of  effect ;  and  for  the 
simple  reason  that  such  an  attempt,  if  admitted  to  be  valid, 
would  also  discredit  every  other  form  of  human  activity 
and  thought.  Philosophy  and  science  were  cradled  in 
error  and  have  been  guilty  of  many  mistakes,  but  they  are 
none  the  less  the  noble  struggles  of  the  mind  for  light  and 
truth.  Art  had  its  rude  beginnings,  but  even  there  it 
betrays  that  love  for  beauty  for  which  mankind  has 
sought  throughout  the  centuries  a  more  complete  and  ade¬ 
quate  expression.  Morals  and  religion  are  discolored  by 
imperfections  and  blotched  with  the  dark  stains  of  cruelty 
and  sin,  and  yet  they  remain  for  all  this,  the  high  and  sub¬ 
lime  endeavors  of  the  human  spirit  to  embody  the  divine. 

One  other  perverted  use  of  the  search  for  origins  de¬ 
mands  attention  before  we  close. 

It  is  found  in  the  assumption  not  that  the  lowest  term  of 
a  series  contains  a  characteristic  element  of  the  whole,  but 


23 


that  this  lowest  term  is  in  itself  the  boiled-down  essence  of 
everything  that  is  to  follow — the  final  residuum  of  which 
all  higher  terms  are  but  modified  and  elaborate  expres¬ 
sions.  In  psychology,  for  example,  it  goes  back  to  sensa¬ 
tion,  as  the  ultimate  element  of  consciousness  and  then 
asserts  that  abstract  thought  and  moral  conflict  are  but 
mere  sensations — nothing  more.  In  biology  again  it  goes 
back  to  protoplasm  and  then  triumphantly  declares,  there 
you  are  !  This  is  all  that  life  comes  to — just  this  glutinous, 
sticky,  mucilaginous,  protoplasmic  mass.  In  materialistic 
metaphysics  it  goes  back  to  the  primitive  atoms  and  then 
affirms  that  all  phenomena  of  life  and  mind  are  but  the  iri¬ 
descent  play  and  movement  of  these  atomic  elements. 

Now  here  there  are  two  important  things  to  be  said  ;  and 
the  first  is  that  even  the  primitive  atoms,  supposing  them 
to  exist,  demand  some  adequate  reason  for  being  where 
and  what  they  are.  In  other  words,  “  the  weight  and  bur¬ 
den  of  the  mystery  of  things”  is  not  removed  even  by  a 
return  to  phenomenal  beginnings.  “It  is  not  the  rustic,” 
says  Herbert  Spencer,  nor  the  artisan,  nor  the  trader, 
who  sees  something  more  than  a  matter  of  course  in  the 
hatching  of  a  chick;  but  it  is  the  biologist,  who,  pushing 
to  the  uttermost  his  analysis  of  vital  phenomena,  reaches 
his  greatest  perplexity  when  a  speck  of  protoplasm  under 
the  microscope  shows  him  life  in  its  simplest  form  and 
makes  him  feel  that,  however  he  may  formulate  its  proces¬ 
ses,  the  actual  play  of  forces  remains  unimaginable.”  And 
so  we  see  that  the  reduction  of  things  to  their  simplest  phe¬ 
nomenal  expressions,  useful  as  the  process  is,  does  not 
bring  us  to  the  real  source  of  existence.  Hence  it  follows, 
and  this  is  the  second  thing  there  is  to  be  said,  that  these 
simplest  phenomenal  expressions  fail  to  give  us  a  satisfac¬ 
tory  explanation  of  all  that  succeeds  them. 

When  a  man  tells  me  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  love  and 
hate  are  nothing  more  than  molecular  attractions  and  an¬ 
tagonisms,  I  demur.  The  explanation  is  simplicity  itself, 


— 24— 


but  it  is  likewise  inadequate.  In  like  manner,  when  I  am 
pointed  to  the  infant’s  primitive  acts  of  self-preservation  in 
proof  of  the  assertion  that  human  nature  is  wholly  selfish ,  I 
demur  again.  And  why?  Because  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  that  out  of  that  which  is  wholly  selfish  the  subse¬ 
quent  self-sacrifices  of  the  human  heart  should  be  evolved. 
Selfish  as  all  life  is  in  its  first  manifestations  there  must 
exist  at  least  a  germ  of  self-effacement  in  it  if  history  is 
to  become  intelligible  and  great  and  noble  lives  accounted 
for.  And  this  case  of  the  infant  provides  me  with  a  simple 
illustration  of  what  I  am  trying  to  make  clear.  Admitting 
not  merely  that  its  first  instinctive  acts  are  self-preserva¬ 
tive,  but  also  that  its  early  years  are  selfish  and  self-cen¬ 
tered,  admitting  all  this,  how  are  we  to  understand  that 
subsequent  awakening  of  what  is  called  the  nobler  self? 
Is  it  but  a  differentiation  of  the  baser  self?  Reason 
rebels.  Hence,  we  conclude  that  there  is  more  in  the 
child  than  is  at  first  expressed  in  those  little,  grasping, 
self-appropriating  hands.  They  give  a  true  account  of  a 
certain  element  of  his  nature ;  they  do  not  manifest  the 
whole.  Therefore,  we  cannot  deduce  the  entire  subse¬ 
quent  history  of  this  nature  from  these  first  and  imperfect 
expressions.  Behind  these  primitive  utterances  there  is 
something  that  has  not  shown  itself  or  spoken.  What 
that  something  is,  development  alone  can  reveal.  In  con¬ 
sequence,  to  understand  this  child  or  human  nature  any¬ 
where  we  must  watch  it  grow.  It  is  not  enough  to  sit 
beside  its  cradle.  We  must  go  forth  with  it  into  the  world. 
There  we  shall  observe  the  appearance  of  new  forces,  the 
revelation  of  a  larger  being  than  ever  the  exacting  tyrant 
of  the  crib  or  nursery  gave  promise  of. 

The  like  is  true  of  atoms,  protoplasm,  sensations.  There 
is  that  in  the  internal  elaboration  of  received  impressions 
which  testifies  to  something  more  in  mental  life  than  “  mere 
sensation.”  There  is  that  in  the  moral  and  religious  aspi¬ 
rations  of  the  race  which  goes  beyond  the  power  of  atoms 


—25— 


or  of  protoplasm  to  utter  or  explain.  The  result  is  that 
having  gone  back  to  origins  we  cannot  remain  there ; 
neither  can  we  rest  content  with  any  of  these  lowest  terms 
as  adequate  sources  of  mind.  In  the  attempt  to  trace 
things  to  their  beginnings  we  have  carried  with  us  the  ex- 
J periences  of  our  memorable  journey  and  the  disclosure  of 
a  gradual  development  along  the  way.  That  with  which 
we  are  really  confronted,  therefore,  as  the  outcome  of  our 
search  for  origins  is  an  ever-ascending  series  of  phenomenal 
sequence.  Not  the  lowest  terms  alone,  but  the  highest 
are  required  for  any  true  explanation  of  the  source  of 
things.  And  it  is  these  highest  terms,  as  they  become 
articulate,  which  speak  of  an  end  or  destiny  to  which  the 
whole  is  moving  on.  Thus  are  we  forced  to  turn  to  the 
future  as  well  as  the  past.  Science  predicts  what  is  to 
come  as  well  as  conceives  what  has  taken  place.  Art  and 
religion  look  upward  to  the  world  of  unattained  ideals  as 
well  as  at  the  world  of  actual  achievement,  while  the  mind, 
which  shines  through  the  infinite  series  of  ascending 
change,  bids  us  search  for  still  more  perfect  revelations  of 
its  nature — bids  us  express  in  deed  and  life  its  yet  withheld 
and  unaccomplished  destiny. 

And  what  is  true  of  the  Universe  at  large  is  also  true  of 
this  University.  Time  was  when  Lehigh  was  but  a  dream 
in  the  mind  of  a  noble  man.  Time  was  when  a  few  Trustees 
assembled  in  the  Sun  Inn  of  Bethlehem  were  the  only  em¬ 
bodiment  the  dream  had  found.  There  was  no  campus  and 
no  president ;  there  were  no  college  buildings,  no  professors, 
no  students.  Facts  such  as  these  we  remember  to-day.  We 
recall  our  origins  with  thankfulness  and  interest.  With  af¬ 
fection  and  pride  we  trace  the  history  of  our  University  to 
its  beginnings.  But  having  reached  them,  are  we  pre¬ 
pared  to  say  that  Lehigh  University  consists  of  nothing  but 
a  Board  of  Trustees?  Are  we  prepared  to  say  that  it  is 
nothing  more  than  the  dream  of  Asa  Packer? 

If  we  were,  we  should  be  recreant  to  fact  and  history  and 


- 2  6 - 


wholly  unworthy  participants  in  this  festival  of  Founder’s 
Day.  We  should  be  disloyal  to  our  beginnings  by  pre¬ 
tending  that  they  were  all  and  everything.  We  should 
dishonor  our  past  if  we  forgot  our  future.  The  glory  of 
Founder’s  Day  is  that  in  reminding  us  of  our  origin  it  calls 
up  our  destiny.  We  are  not  and  we  dare  not  be  satisfied 
with  the  past.  Proud  as  we  are  of  what  the  University  has 
already  accomplished,  we  cannot  remain  content  with  it, 
neither  can  we  say  that  it  is  all.  There  is  a  future  before 
us — there  is  a  destiny  to  fulfil ;  and  he  does  greatest  honor 
to  the  Founder  who  seeks  so  to  develop  the  Lehigh  of 
to-day  so  as  to  make  it  equal  to  the  larger  demands  and 
new  emergencies  of  to-morrow. 

In  this  our  common  work  we  all  have  part  and  lot — 
Trustees  and  Alumni,  Friends,  Faculty  and  Students, 
and  to  them  and  to  myself  I  say:  “There  is  not  only  a 
past  to  recall  but  a  future  to  create  ;  our  origin  reminds  us 
of  our  destiny — the  destiny  of  ushering  in  a  brighter  light 
and  a  more  perfect  manhood.” 

To  achieve  this  destiny  let  every  man  who  has  the  caus.e 
of  education  at  heart,  every  man  who  loves  his  flag  and 
country,  every  man  who  believes  in  the  future  of  American 
manhood,  mind  and  character  reconsecrate  himself  to-day 
to  truth  and  righteousness  and  the  imperishable  love  of 
both.  Let  the  Founder’s  Day  of  1898  be  the  birthday  of 
wider  mental  interest  and  of  profounder  moral  earnestness. 
Let  it  be  the  beginning  of  years  to  us — the  beginning  of 
clearer  thought  and  harder  work  and  brighter  enthusiasm, 
so  that  in  the  light  and  force  of  these  beginnings  we  may 
go  forth  more  triumphantly  than  ever  to  realize  our  destiny. 


